Cain Velasquez Puts Jon Jones on Blast for Being a Dirty Fighter

It’s been nearly three months since Jon Jones defeated Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 to recapture the light heavyweight championship, only to test positive to steroids and have it taken away, becoming the first fighter in UFC history to be stripped of a title three times.

The hard feelings don’t appear to be fading at all, however, particularly for Cormier’s longtime teammate, former heavyweight titleholder Cain Velasquez.

Jones originally won the fight via knockout midway through the third round. A few weeks later, it was revealed that Jones had tested positive for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid. Following the anti-doping violation, UFC officials stripped Jones of his third UFC championship.

Cormier was reinstated as champion, and has mostly taken the high road when making public comments about Jones’ tremendous fall from grace. Velasquez isn’t being so kind.

“It all comes down to people being dirty,” Velasquez said at a recent media scrum in South Korea. “Our gym, me, Daniel, we don’t need extra substances to make us better. We do it by working hard. We’ve done this since we were kids. We learned how to train and train right, and go out there and be competitive.

“So, if you bring steroids or just some kind of performance-enhancing drug into it; if it’s not allowed, it’s not allowed. We want everybody to be on the same page. So for him to do that, for Jon Jones to do that, that’s (expletive),” Velasquez continued.

“We want everybody on the same playing field. When we go out there, we want it to be even as far as that goes, and having it come down to training, preparation, and being able to fight. The guy that goes out there and shines on that day is the guy that is going to win. It’s generally from working hard and being prepared, not from anything else.”

Jones is still in the midst of adjudicating his anti-doping violation, and will likely be mired in that for the next few months. Depending upon the outcome, he could then be sidelined for several years if he isn’t able to somehow clear his name, which seems unlikely.

Cormier is taking the remainder of the year off to allow his body to recover, but intends to make his next title defense against Volkan Oezdemir sometime in 2018.